


threads

by hinotorihime



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Trans Character, daemon AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 04:20:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16527221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hinotorihime/pseuds/hinotorihime
Summary: You make connections however you can.(Or: Look out, look back, look forward. Sometimes it's even enough.)(Or: You'dthinkbeing able to talk to and cuddle your own soul would make people less prone to loneliness.)Chapter 1: Hamid has a lot of nightmares, these days.





	threads

**Author's Note:**

> blows kisses to ross
> 
> welcome to my new hyperfixation (remember back in august when i said 'i don't like actual play shows, i can't get into them'? lmfao) anyway: every fandom needs a daemon au, a harry potter au, and a high school au and i am Here To Deliver

Hamid has a lot of nightmares now. Waking up feeling unrested has become routine, sort of like when he was in school and pulling coffee-fueled all-nighters almost every week, except that he _is_ sleeping these days, and the sleep just doesn’t help.

Tonight’s nightmare is the one of the cave under Paris: of being suffocated under damp rock, screaming silently because he doesn’t have the breath to make a sound. His arm is numb. In the dream, the numb arm is moving on its own, claws ripping methodically into Zolf’s tendons even though he shouldn’t be able to reach from here. And there’s a pain in his gut like a fishhook trying to pull his stomach right out of his navel—it _hurts_ he hurts they hurt—

“ ** _HAMID_** _!_ ”

—she’s scrabbling at the rocks, desperate to reach him, and their bond scrapes out his insides because she’s _too far away_ the rocks are blocking her from getting to him—he’s going to die here entombed in bone and stone and water, alone and daemonless—

Hamid wakes up, clutching Aset hard enough it must be hurting her, but she’s shaking too, and she presses her soft-furred face into his neck and they both cry.

 

When they were little, back when Aset spent most of her time as various lizards and Hamid was still Nadira, they used to go sit on the balcony outside Aziza’s window and snuggle with their sisters—Hamid’s head on Aziza’s lap while she braided his hair; Aset curled up on top of Saira’s daemon’s back. And they’d read, or bicker absently, or just drift off to sleep all in a comfortable pile with the hot wind blowing in from the desert, making Hamid’s small nose wrinkle against drifting flakes of sand.

He and Saira are sitting together today, staring out at what’s left of the garden. He’s a little taller than her now, and Aset is too large to fit comfortably on a jackal’s sharp-boned back anymore so she’s on the ground twined around Hamid’s feet. Saira looks tired and thin; now, in private, her headscarf is pulled down around her neck, and he could almost imagine he sees faint flashes of grey in her dark hair. The spot where Aziza should be is so empty he can feel the emptiness. The dry air sucks his eyes raw and red.

(He doesn’t cry. He’s done enough crying for the day, and redone his eyeliner at least seven times, like a nervous tic, like maybe if he looks presentable enough it’ll bring Aziza back.)

“I think they’ve got that bit over there just about clear,” he says, pointing at a small detachment of the army of gardeners that is valiantly wrestling with the duned-up sand covering the estate.

“I don’t know why they bother,” Mansur grumbles, ears flicking where he stretches on his side behind Saira. “The next storm that comes along will just cover it all up again.”

“Oh, hush,” Saira says absently. She leans back against him, crossed legs drawing up to her chest. She’s started picking at her thumbnail—a habit Hamid had thought she’d broken herself of years ago. The skin at the cuticle is bleeding. Gently, he reaches a hand over and takes hers, pulling it down to her lap. She doesn’t pull away. They sit like that for a while.

“ _Gods,_ remember when Ziza used to bring that stupid snake pillow out here?” says Saira suddenly. “And then she’d whine because it got dirty and she didn’t notice until the sheets were already stained?”

“Ziza was such a disaster of a person,” agrees Hamid, who had been maybe four when that snake pillow was finally consigned to the dustbin for good, but it sounds exactly like something either of his sisters would do. “Tahir had the patience of a saint, putting up with her—”

He falters a bit at that. He didn’t see her die. He didn’t see his pretty sharp-tongued Ziza hit the wall, didn’t see her neck snap, didn’t see Tahir fluttering his wings weakly as he dissolved into golden dust. That doesn’t seem to matter to the nightmares.

“—putting up with her and her weird obsessions,” Aset presses on. “What was it she was collecting before she went on tour? Dolls?”

“Yeah,” says Saira. “I’ve got a couple of them. She—she left one for you, too. Since we didn’t know when we’d see you again.”

They look at each other. Hamid puts his hand on Aset’s head and the warmth of her white fur sends yet another hitch through his throat.

“I _miss_ her,” says Saira quietly.

 

He dreams of François Henri—of blank eyes, of a trail of footprints in a thick layer of dust, of a small terrier curled in the corner staring dully at nothing.

“Look at him!” Zolf demands furiously. “You’ve killed him. The things that made him François are gone. There’s nothing left of him, just an empty shell.”

Mr Ceiling is silent for a brief moment, and then it says with the faintest tint of confusion, « you said that when someone dies, their daemon dissolves. but françois henri’s daemon is right there. so françois henri is not dead. »

“He’s _broken_ ,” Zolf is trying to explain, and Hamid stares and stares at the terrier lying in her nest of dust. He grips Aset trembling against his shoulder. Beside him, he can see Bril pressed up against Sasha’s leg, snarling quietly.

(In university they’d had a seminar once about intercision. They had pictures. It’s hard to capture the glassiness of a severed daemon’s not-gaze-never-again-gaze in pictures. Didn’t prepare him for the way he can taste the wrongness in the air, the churning of his stomach, gut-wrenching _sick_ at seeing this man’s soul limp and unmoving. Sasha falls to her knees next to her and hesitantly puts a gentle finger on the terrier’s fur. She doesn’t move. Henri doesn’t react. And Zolf is shouting at Mr Ceiling and Bril is softly crying and Hamid—)

In the memory, the scene continues: Bertie strides over and neatly bisects the man at the desk. The terrier stirs ever so slightly as she fades into golden motes of Dust. Mr Ceiling still doesn’t seem to understand.

But this is a nightmare.

(—stares and stares and feels his legs like lead and the sudden severing crumples him like a dropped handkerchief, fluttering weakly to the floor and folding in on itself in boneless wrinkles. Aset looks past him with glassy eyes and the emptiness rips at him like Saira’s teeth tearing her own fingernails to bloody. Zolf is talking to him. The words mean nothing. He says to Zolf, “I’m sorry. I’m very busy right now. Can you make an appointment?”)

 

Zolf wants to go back. Zolf is angry. Zolf wheels himself deliberately out the door and Hamid tries to ignore the writhing hurt and stuffs his mouth full to give himself time not to give in.

Aset wants to go back. Aset is angry. To disagree with one’s other half in public would be the height of embarrassingly poor manners, and even if Hamid has forgotten his breeding she has not. But her ears are flat back on her head, and Bril takes a step toward her, hesitant.

“Please,” he murmurs. “You know we can’t do this without you.”

“Hamid, we need you,” Sasha echoes.

“I’m sure you don’t, actually,” says Hamid brightly. “You're good at stabbing things until they're fixed. I don't know how well that will work if this isn't _real_ , of course, but it's probably better than anything I can come up with.”

Sasha looks genuinely hurt. Aset can feel her own fur bristling. She can feel the guilt and despair rolling off of Hamid through her; he knows exactly how mean he's being right now and is telling himself he doesn't care.

“This isn’t right,” says Aset in Arabic, forcing her voice not to tremble. “Mido, _please._ We have to go. You know we have to go.”

Hamid ignores her. He cuts another slice of cheesecake and resolutely avoids looking at anyone, even his daemon.

“Fine then,” Sasha says finally, in the inflectionless tone Aset had thought she’d finally grown past. “C’mon, Bril.”

She moves toward the door without waiting for her daemon, and with an apologetic look back at Aset, Bril hurries to catch up with her.

Aset waits until the door has slammed shut behind their friends. Then she jumps up onto the table, planting her paws firmly in the middle of his plate of cheesecake.

“You _selfish_ little _fool_!” she rages. “You'll make us sit here eating cake while our friends go off to maybe die?”

“They'll be fine,” says Hamid dully. “This isn't real anyway, if Sasha’s right. We'll probably just wake up in Mr Ceiling’s rooms again.”

“Or we could get trapped in an illusion for the rest of our lives. We studied magic! We know the risks!”

Hamid shrugs.

“So what? Even if we get out, how will we know? How will we ever know what's real again?”

“That's not the point, Hamid,” says Aset quietly.

“Would it be so bad? Staying here?”

_Our parents are proud of us here. We've redeemed ourselves here._

Aset digs her claws into the table.

“You're dodging the point,” she growls.

“I’m being realistic.”

“You’re _being_ the arrogant child we _said_ we were trying _not_ to be,” she says coldly. (It's cruel of her. Their mother used the same tone once, six months ago, almost the same words, and she knows Hamid remembers from the way his face sets mulishly and his eyes flicker away from her face.)

“There’s no _point_!” he cries. “Even if it is a simulation—even if they can end it—what use would it be? What use would _I_ be? My plans always come out so well, don't they?”

“Self-pity is unbecoming of a Tahan. You disgrace yourself!”

Hamid’s pallor deepens, but he doesn’t stand up; just stares at his plate and says evenly, “So what’s _fucking_ new?”

Aset bites him, hard, her teeth sinking into his shoulder with a satisfying resistance. He’s put on muscle, these few months past. Wouldn't it be a shame to waste it _moping_?

He yelps and bats at her. She refuses to be batted.

“So what if we don't know what's real or not? So we'll never know again for certain. _So what?_ Our friends are out there fixing it! And that's where we should be, Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan, and if you won't let us go I'll bite you again until you do!”

He still won't meet her eyes. She can feel the churning of his emotions as he wavers ever so slightly. She stares him down.

A rhythmic knock sounds at the door.

 

_(Yᴏᴜ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ɢᴇᴛ ᴛᴏ ɢɪᴠᴇ ᴜᴘ.)_

 

Hamid wakes up with Grizzop’s foot stuck to his face, the echoing rumble of Azu’s snores vibrating his teeth, and the soft, comforting sensation of Aset curled up against Bril, nose pressed into his fur and purring. He lies for a moment, basking in the feeling of having his friends around him, letting the dreams drain out of him.

Eventually, a thought occurs to him. Gently detaching himself—Grizzop mutters something and rolls over, ears flicking rapidly—Hamid slips out of bed and makes his way around it to the daemons under the window. Sasha’s sitting on the sill, chewing on a lock of hair and staring out at the dehydrated landscape of Damascus.

“‘Lo,” she says without turning to look at him.

“Hey,” he replies. At his feet, the pile of daemon stirs. Aset’s fur glints in the morning sun, a strange brassy tint like the scales of Hamid’s claws. It's been getting brighter. He thinks it makes her even more beautiful. The metallic fur-tips rustle with her slow breaths. Bril’s nose is tucked on top of her head, his little hand-paws wrapped closely around her.

Hamid glances at Sasha, who’s still idly swinging her legs out the window.

“Are you alright?” he murmurs.

“Why wouldn't I be?”

“You don't normally... let people touch you? I just wasn't sure—”

She does look then, following his vague gesture with her narrow brown eyes. She looks tired, purple bruised around her eyes and lines at the corners of her mouth—but it's alive-tired, doing-too-much tired, not-enough-sleep-tired: there's colour in her face, scars pale and white and healed over. Some indefinable vibrancy he hadn't realized she'd been losing until the Heart pumped it back into her.

( _Tᴀᴋᴇ ᴄᴀʀᴇ ᴏꜰ ʜᴇʀ ꜰᴏʀ ᴍᴇ._

Hamid salutes the billboard. Aset runs beside him, tail curled and eyes bright.)

“‘S okay,” Sasha says bluntly. “It's like, weird and kinda squirmy at first but... Bril likes you. And we have less nightmares ‘n stuff. So it's fine.”

“We used to sleep like that with our sisters,” explains Hamid. “You remember Saira?” (He notes a sudden slight blush, and files it away for further thought.) “Her Mansur, and Ziza’s Tahir and Saleh’s Rashida, they'd pile up with Aset and we'd all sleep in a big heap in one of the sitting rooms. It was what we did when one of us was sad, or Father was out too much and we got lonely, or sometimes just for fun.”

“That sounds nice,” says Sasha, and she sounds like she means it. “I ain't got siblings. Tons of cousins but even me ‘n Brock weren't... really that close. People don't get close like that, where I'm from.”

“I'm.... glad you don't mind?”

She shrugs.

“Told you. Bril likes you, and Aset. You're a good friend, Hamid. It's nice waking up and remembering that sometimes.”

He wants to ask her about the nightmares. He wants to apologize for every time he's ever been less than the friend she deserves. He wants to promise that he won't be one of the ones who's abandoned her. What he does instead is ask, “May I hug you?”

He thinks maybe she understands all of those things, because she does her one-shouldered shrug and says sure, whatever, and even leans into the hug a bit. Against Aset’s nose, the sun glints gold and brass on Bril’s dark fur.


End file.
